"My lady, I know not in whose hands to trust my faith and fortune but
yours. To-morrow everything found in my house will become the property
of those accursed monks, who have no pity on me. Deign, then, to take
care of this. It is a poor return for the pleasure I enjoyed by your
means, of seeing her I love, since no treasure is worth one of her
glances. I know not what will become of me--but if, one day, my children
become free, I have a faith in your generosity as a woman and a queen."

"Well said, good man," replied the queen. "The abbey may one day have
need of my assistance, and then I will remember this."

There was an immense crowd in the abbey church at the espousals of
Tiennette, to whom the queen presented a wedding dress, and whom the
king authorized to wear earrings and jewels. When the handsome couple
came from the abbey to the lodgings of Anseau, who had become a serf,
near St. Leu, there were torches at the windows to sec them pass, and in
the street two lines of people, as at a royal progress. The poor husband
had wrought a silver bracelet, which he wore upon his left arm, in token
of his belonging to the abbey of St. Germain. Then, notwithstanding his
servitude, they cried, "Noel, Noel!" as to a new king. And the good man
saluted courteously, happy as a lover, and pleased with the homage each
one paid to the grace and modesty of Tiennette. Then the good goldsmith
found green branches, and a crown of bluettes on his doorposts, and the
principal persons of the quarter were all there, who, to do him honor,
saluted him with music, and cried out, "You will always be a noble man,
in spite of the abbey!"

Tiennette was delighted with her handsome lodgings, and the crowd of
customers who came and went, delighted with her charms. The honey-moon
passed, there came one day, in great pomp, old abbot Hugo, their lord